Who am I kidding? I've been counting for about the last 10 days. We are inside of 2 days from when E gets his cast off. Less than 2 days before he can wear 2 shoes. Less than 2 days before I can GIVE HIM A BATH!!! Can you guess what I'm most looking forward to? We do a nightly sponge bath, but he loved his baths before the casting began. I know it will take some time for him to get used to it again, but having a way to wash his hair daily will be soooooo nice. Sponge baths do not lend themselves well to washing a 1 year-old's hair. We do wash his hair in the sink, but he hates it, so we put it off as long as possible. As a result, he goes 2 weeks in between having his hair clean, and it's driving me nuts. He thinks it's very cute to take (insert type of food)-covered hands and put both of them on his head and grab handfuls of hair. And it is cute. But it's also very difficult to get all of the food bits out of his hair. Am I obsessing? Probably.
I do know we're going to have issues when the cast comes off. His leg has been encased in a cast for all but 2 days of the last 5 months, so there will be sensory issues. He's not going to like things touching that leg and foot, probably including water. He's not put weight on his full foot, only his toes, for most of the 5 months. He was not pulling to stand consistently before the cast - that happened later. He does not pull to stand in the normal pattern - he barely uses his left (uncasted) leg at all. Mostly, I'd say E has the most well developed upper body strength of just about any 14 month old out there, because he only uses his arms to pull to stand. I worry a bit about how his spine has developed in the last few months, since he's been doing quite a bit of one legged standing and cruising just using his right toes in a pretty big developmental stage, but that's an issue for later. Not to mention there really wasn't any way around that, short of picking up the diagnosis earlier. But again, nothing we can do about that now. Then there are the braces.
He'll have 2, like I said last time. They'll take a mold of E's foot and (probably) lower leg Wednesday morning after the cast comes off. He's not going to like that, but he doesn't like any of the casting procedures, so that's nothing new. They'll send that mold and create a brace for E to wear during the daytime, and we'll probably get that back in a few weeks. The part that worries me more is the nighttime brace. He'll be in a "club foot type brace." That was what Dr. H's nurse said. It will have 2 shoes and a bar, but I didn't know to ask what type. Apparently there are multiple kinds of shoes and bars in various combinations. I've been advised to get a dobbs bar with ponsetti or mitchell shoes. The Dobbs bar is hinged, which will allow movement at night (a big plus with a 14 month-old, I'm sure) and the Mitchell shoes appear (online) to be a set of sandals with straps, which I can also see as being less offensive. He's not going to like bracing at night, regardless, and I am borrowing worry to stress over that in advance, but I am who I am. I am gearing myself up to argue for the moveable bar and sandal set-up, but I'm hoping that is the type that the doctor recommends, saving me a little bit of stress. Who knows - I will see on Wednesday!
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